What a Week's Worth of Groceries Looks Like (And Costs) Around the World

As we all learned from watching episodes of Cribs, there’s no better way to assess someone’s lifestyle than by peeking into their fridge. On the MTV show, the stash generally consisted of a lot of Gatorade and champagne. But if you look at the food in the household of regular folks who don’t have personal chefs, it can tell you a lot about their finances and their nutrition.

In his book The Hungry Planet, Peter Menzelstudied 30 families around the globe to provide a snapshot of the “food gulf between nations,” showing both the diversity of diet and the vast differences in price from place to place—a week’s worth of groceries costs £200 in Japan, £25 in India, and £46 in Guatamela, for example. Photos were taken of the families, alongside their weekly haul, to show first-hand what these differences look like.